Londonairy Air Review

Annie O’Donnell

Band- Period 4

January 31, 2003

            My review is on Londonairy Air composed by John Kinyon. I chose to review this piece because I thought that our band performed this song the best and it was our strongest piece. At times, I could hear a few wrong notes and squeaks in the beginning of the song during the clarinets’ solo. There were times when it didn’t sound like “one clarinet” when it was supposed to.

            I think we could have improved on the phrasing. One place where our phrasing wasn’t good was between the pick up measures 17-25. Our transition was somewhat choppy and could have been a lot smoother.

            I thought dynamics was one of our strongest areas in the piece. I thought we had great dynamic changes whether we were doing a crescendo or decrescendo. I liked the changes we made at the end of the piece right after the melody when we went right back to the soft-playing clarinets. I thought this piece had the best dynamic changes.

            Overall, the solo groups were good but sometimes it was hard to hear the melody. In measures where clarinets came in the for the melody part that was the refrain of “Oh Danny Boy”, you couldn’t really hear them. Also you couldn’t hear the melody was a little weak in measures 34-42. In those measures flutes, trumpets, and a little bit of low brass had melody. You could only hear the flutes loud and clear. I think we could have improved on balancing by playing softer so you could hear all of the different instruments.

            For an overall performance rating, I gave Londonairy Air a 7. I thought that this piece deserved a 7 because it had very good dynamics, good balancing, and pretty good note playing. It had very good dynamics with even crescendos and decrescendos moving smoothly from melodies to solo groups. In measures 26-27 there was a really good decrescendo building up into another crescendo. It sounded really good.

            The band’s  balancing was alright. You should be able to hear the melody clearly, but some of the time it was hard to hear it. In measures like 34-42, you could only hear one instrument group instead of several.  Lastly, there was pretty good note playing throughout the piece.  In the beginning of the song, the clarinet section was not playing in unison and sometimes where it was supposed to be a B natural, and you could hear a combination of a B natural and B flat. However, overall I thought that the piece sounded good, that band members tried hard to do their best. I thought that Londonairy Air was our best and strongest musical arrangement played at the Winter Concert.